The Jumbie God's Revenge

by Tracey Baptiste

  All her collected frustration, all her doubt and guilt and worry, erupted from her in one gushing stream.

  It blasted from her core and radiated out like an orb. It threw Severine away, vibrated up into the sky, and drilled into the ground. The water rippled, the ground shook, and the sky sizzled. Waves gathered strength and size as they careened outward. As her fury extended, she felt the sea, the sargassum, the sand. She felt the roots of every plant that sucked water and the flesh and blood of every creature that relied on it. For a moment, the world fell silent and still. Even the damp wind and the clouds ceased to move.

  Corinne pressed her hand to Bouki’s chest. His heart was beating, but his pulse was dim and slow. Corinne closed her eyes and felt through the water again, searching the currents for something large and slithering. Then she darted off, leaving Bouki behind.

  Corinne found Mama D’Leau still sitting among the dead, bleached coral even though the current that had trapped her was long broken. The jumbie had her back to Corinne and was curved over something small in her hands, to which she was humming.

  Corinne’s rage gathered again, like a tightly packed wave, and burst forth against Mama D’Leau’s back. The jumbie lurched forward and the thing in her hand fell. It was her opal. She looked back. When she saw Corinne, her eyes narrowed. Corinne pushed the water again, and it rolled toward the jumbie, but this time, Mama D’Leau whipped her tail around, and the force of the water parted and moved to either side of her.

  So, Mama D’Leau said.

  So, Corinne said.

  Corinne raced toward the jumbie, using the water to move even faster. She crashed into Mama D’Leau’s stomach with her shoulder, and the jumbie fell back hard on the coral, cracking it. Mama D’Leau pushed herself up. She moved her hand to her back to assess the damage. Her fingertips were covered in drops of blood, which immediately mixed with the water and disappeared. The jumbie’s jaw tightened. Mama D’Leau stared Corinne down and Corinne began to sink. She felt herself grow heavier and heavier. She felt the water being squeezed out of every pore in her skin. Corinne looked down. Her orange tail was turning stone gray.

  Corinne fought. She drew water back to herself, absorbing as much of it as she could. She began to feel lighter, until her tail swayed beneath her.

  Mama D’Leau’s mouth opened in disbelief. She coiled her tail like a spring and launched herself at Corinne. Corinne tried to call the current to push Mama D’Leau away, but it wasn’t fast enough. Mama D’Leau was on top of her with her hands around Corinne’s neck. She pinned Corinne to the soft golden dirt and squeezed.

  As she was pressed farther and farther down, Corinne felt every individual speck of sand, every broken piece of coral, and every torn leaf of seaweed that pressed against her body. She could almost see each of them surrounding her. She could feel the droplets of the water, too, how they were tiny, individual splashes, all moving as one body. She could even sense the air in between all of it, and draw it into her lungs. She let her ability to feel every single thing around her reach out into the sand, across the water, and up into the air. There was the coral reef, the island, the ocean, the heartbeats of people on the surface of both land and sea, every tree and plant and blade of grass rooted to the soil. There was Papa Bois, still as a tree in the forest, and then the rock that was Bouki sunk beneath the waves. She felt the mermaids, the fish, and the leatherback turtles that had come to the island to lay their eggs, but found the shore ravaged and broken.

  Corinne’s senses reached to other islands, feeling them, tasting them, smelling them, seeing them, hearing them. Then she reached beyond the islands to the oceans, and huge, solid continents. She felt the birds in the sky, and their panic as clouds gathered again, drawing pressure in the air and making it hard for them to keep their equilibrium.

  She knew when Mama D’Leau pulled away and backed off toward the dead coral. She knew when Sisi arrived and looked at her with worry in her eyes. But she could also see her father with his feet pointed toward the sea, the muscles in the arc of his heel strained, ready to run to her at any moment. She knew Malik was sitting in the sand at the shore, looking out on the waves for his missing brother. She felt Severine shiver and crawl into a hidden crack in the hill beneath Corinne’s home. She couldn’t decide what to pay attention to. They were all important, and at the same time, none of them was important.

  Sisi picked up Corinne and lifted her to the surface, and took her to the beach, slowly.

  Corinne wanted to tell Sisi that she was fine, but she couldn’t move or speak. Maybe she had stretched her senses too far. She tried to focus only on the feeling of Sisi’s hands under her back, and the swish of her tail in the waves, and the bits of salty sand that drifted into her mouth.

  When Sisi reached shore, Pierre, Hugo, Malik, and the entire Duval family were waiting at the edge of the waves. Corinne heard her papa sobbing. She felt Mrs. Duval take her from Sisi, and carry her gently to Pierre. He cradled her in the water. Malik reached out, petted her hair, and then began to cry. Hugo pulled him close. Sisi disappeared and returned moments later, dragging the stone that was Bouki.

  Corinne felt for her papa’s heartbeat. She felt its regular rhythm and her heart beating in time with his. His warmth washed over her, helping her feel his large, rough hands and the soft nats of his dreadlocked hair against her skin. She felt warmer and warmer, and then cold again as a soft breeze blew past them, puckering her skin.

  “Corinne?” Pierre said softly.

  “Papa,” Corinne said. Corinne reached toward the rock in Sisi’s arms and felt until she could sense the heart at the middle of it. She pulled moisture to Bouki’s body, softening the stone until his skin went from dull gray to soft reddish brown, starting at the tips of his toes and trailing toward his stomach and chest. Hugo gasped. Mrs. Duval took Hugo’s hand, and they steadied themselves against each other. Laurent’s brother Abner whistled softly through a few missing front teeth. In another moment, Bouki quivered in Sisi’s arms, warm and safe.

  Corinne relaxed and thought about being on land with her papa and her friends, and with the next wash of a wave, her tail was gone.

  “How did you do that?” Pierre asked.

  Corinne shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain.

  “Did you find Severine?” Pierre asked.

  “You knew where I went?” Corinne asked.

  “When you didn’t come right back, I knew,” Pierre said.

  Corinne nodded. She looked up into the darkened sky where the rain was beginning to fall.

  “We have to get inside,” Pierre said.

  Corinne could barely stand, so Pierre picked her up. As he climbed the hill, she asked the sky, “Wasn’t it enough? Didn’t you get what you wanted?”

  The rain came down harder.

  “Why wasn’t that enough?” She clenched her hands and gritted her teeth.

  Pierre put her down and stepped back. “Corinne!”

  Corinne looked at her skin. It was red, as if she had been in the sun too long. As raindrops fell on her they sizzled and evaporated. “What’s happening?”

  Pierre, Hugo, Bouki and Malik, and Laurent and his family were all looking at her, their faces filled with fear. “What’s the matter?”

  “Corinne,” Pierre said again. It was the way he called her on the boat when he wanted her to turn the oar, or pull up the nets, or bail water from the bottom.

  “Yes, Papa?”

  She saw something in his hands. It was the shirt she had been wearing, and inside of it was her skin, slack in his hands. When Corinne looked down at herself again, she was a bright orange flame against red flesh, hovering just above the ground.

  A strong breeze took her higher. She spread her arms, trying to stop herself, but the effort flipped her to the side. She screamed and a tongue of flame burst out, pushing Pierre and the others back.

  Raindrops hi
ssed against Corinne’s fiery flesh as she floated up and up.

  Despite the rain, the entire village emerged from their homes to watch her, bright as a torch, floating into a fist of clouds.

  Near the boats, Corinne spotted a beautiful man and woman holding on to each other where the waves met the land, their eyes as wide with concern as the people’s of the village. Corinne reached a hand out toward them and flipped again—to face a cloud with the face of a man, angry and waiting.

  24

  Huracan

  The island disappeared behind a gray sheet of rain and clouds, but Corinne felt the bitter rage of Huracan above her. She was electrified. Every part of her crackled with a biting, pinching energy.

  The clouds cleared momentarily. Corinne’s own island lay below, among the other islands dotting the wider expanse of sea. The green of their lands had been washed out by rain and mud, but embers of fires and gas lamps along the roads traced lines on their backs. People huddled against the rain in the warmth of every shining yellow light, waiting for the hurricane to stop.

  Corinne had done all she could to restore balance by bringing Severine back home. The jumbie that belonged to the land had returned to it, so the jumbie that belonged to the sea would remain in her domain, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Then Corinne had nearly lost herself using her newfound power. What would happen if she tried to use that power again? She might never come back.

  Corinne floated above the rain clouds to drier air that didn’t sizzle against her skin. Above her, the sky was a deep blue and stars were just appearing in dots of silver that mirrored the yellow flickers on each island. But the starlight was cold and silent.

  The air thinned. Corinne struggled to breathe. The cold closed in around her throat and her fire paled to yellow. As the last threads of heat slipped from her body, Corinne heard a deep, gruff voice: “You have done enough. No more.”

  It wasn’t true. She thought she had done enough, but it wasn’t. She hadn’t helped anyone. Not herself, not her papa, not her friends, no one.

  A defiant fire radiated from Corinne’s body. The flames around her strengthened and leapt away in a burst of orange. She shimmered against the blue of the night.

  Wisps of cloud assembled around her.

  “Huracan,” Corinne said.

  “Who are you to challenge me?” the voice boomed. It came from every direction at once, as if Corinne was inside the god’s throat.

  Corinne tried to say her own name, but the cold closed in and she couldn’t find her voice. She focused on the air against her skin and felt a small pocket of thinner pressure to her left. She strained toward it and her body drifted into the space. She was out of the cloud. Next to her, thick and thin wisps formed into the face of a man. He was young-looking, with straight hair that fell to his shoulders, a wide, flat nose, and thin lips curled into a snarl, which turned slack with surprise when Corinne wasn’t where he thought she would be. The face disappeared. Corinne felt for the air current again, turning when it turned, trying to see Huracan form again, but he was mist and she had no hope of keeping up. She stayed still.

  Lightning crackled the air around her; electricity popped against her skin like newly bursting flames. She shrieked and spewed more fire. The clouds parted in the path of her cry.

  Corinne turned and tried to summon her strength again. Where Huracan had reassembled she tried to breathe fire. Nothing but hot air came out. Again, Huracan disappeared. For a moment, Corinne thought she saw a small curving line in the mist, like a smirk without a face.

  The clouds pulled away and Corinne was able to breathe more easily. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want peace,” Huracan said, rumbling like thunder.

  “You’re destroying people’s homes. That isn’t peace,” Corinne said.

  “Peace is quiet,” Huracan said. “Peace is still. Better to wipe out everything and start again fresh.”

  A thick patch of clouds formed into the shape of a man walking with his hands behind his back, one leg a fishtail that flapped with every step.

  Corinne felt for the fire in her core again and huffed at the god. A thin, yellow flame erupted from her, but before it reached Huracan, he dissolved into a thin mist and was gone.

  Corinne turned—and came face-to-face with the god, whose head was now the size of her whole body.

  “You’re killing us,” she said.

  “So what?”

  “I know this is my fault,” Corinne said. “I can fix it. Just tell me how.”

  “You can fix this? Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m Corinne. Corinne La Mer.”

  “Nicole’s child.”

  “You knew my mother?”

  The mist seemed to be looking at her more carefully. “Yes, I knew her.”

  “My papa said that she died in a hurricane.” Corinne found the pocket of air pressure more easily now. She shifted into it to come closer to Huracan’s face. “A hurricane with lightning. Was that you?”

  Huracan re-formed more solidly into a man and stood before Corinne. “What can wind do but blow? What can rain do but fall? I do what I have to do. I can’t control who gets hurt.”

  Corinne’s heart constricted. She sank lower in the sky. “You killed my mother.”

  “When your papa fishes in the sea, does he choose which fish live and which die in his nets?” Huracan asked.

  “That’s not the same thing,” Corinne said.

  “No?” Huracan said. “Life is life and death is death.” The clouds re-formed into a cold, calculating face with eyes that glittered from the stars behind them.

  “But these storms,” Corinne said. “You mean to kill us all?”

  Lightning crackled across the sky again, and Corinne shrieked in pain. The god rumbled his reply in the thunder that followed. “Yes. All.”

  Corinne hurtled to earth. Her flames extinguished and every particle of air burned her raw, exposed body as she fell. She hit the beach hard, sending sand in every direction.

  Corinne screamed. The combination of the fall and the sea salt against her raw skin ravaged her. She tried not to move.

  The rain had stopped. From where Corinne lay still, she saw the shape of Marlene’s tiny body running toward her in the darkness. The girl carried a calabash gourd, large enough that she needed both hands to hold it. Her steps faltered a moment and her eyes went huge when she saw Corinne, but she kept coming. At last, she held the calabash out low. Inside it was a pile of something velvety and brown. Corinne touched it and felt her skin fold back around her.

  Behind Marlene, nearly the entire village came running, with Pierre leading them. Corinne had never felt more exhausted. She could barely move and it was hard to breathe. She managed to whisper her thanks to Marlene as she lay in the wet sand with the waves kissing her feet.

  “We can’t stay here,” Corinne said. Above her, a tangle of clouds formed with silver lightning that shot through it like veins. “We have to get everyone away.”

  “There is nowhere to go,” Victor argued. Corinne caught a glimpse of him, wet and stiff with anger. “That is your own fault.”

  “This is not the girl’s fault,” Mrs. Duval said. “She has done everything to try to help us.”

  Corinne tried to turn her head toward Mrs. Duval to thank her, but the pain of that small movement throbbed inside her skull. She closed her eyes and opened them again, struggling to focus. Behind Victor, Corinne noticed the beautiful man and woman she had seen before on the beach. She seemed to be the only one who recognized who they really were.

  Pierre and Mrs. Duval helped Corinne up.

  “Where do we go?” Mrs. Duval asked.

  “Back to the mountains,” Corinne said. “It was the safest place.”

  As the crowd scattered, murmuring about the essentials they would collect for the trip, Mama D�
��Leau came to Corinne, walking gracefully in her human form. She wore the garb of the women of the island, a crisp white blouse that opened to show her dark shoulders, a colorful skirt, and a head tie wrapped around her hair and piled high to accommodate her voluminous braids. “I didn’t mean to hurt you so,” she said.

  “And what about Bouki?” Corinne asked.

  The jumbie stiffened. It was true she had hurt the boy. He had wrecked her stone and diminished her power. “He had something of mine. He tricked me.”

  Corinne wanted to laugh, but her chest burned. Whatever Bouki had done, he had managed to get away with it. “He would be the only one who could.” She beckoned Mama D’Leau and Papa Bois to come closer. “It didn’t work. Bringing Severine back wasn’t enough,” she said.

  Papa Bois put his hands into the pockets of his dark pants. His short-sleeved shirt ruffled in the breeze. He bowed his head and glanced at Mama D’Leau.

  “What now?” Corinne asked. “What exactly did Bouki do to trick you?”

  “When he returned the stone to me it was broken,” Mama D’Leau explained.

  “It wasn’t,” Corinne said.

  “Not when you had it,” she said. “He did that himself, but he told me it was damaged when you fled Ma Dessaly and her sons.”

  “And with the stone damaged . . .” Corinne began.

  “I am not quite myself,” said Mama D’Leau. “There is only so much I can do.” She reached into her headwrap and pulled out the opal. It shimmered in her hands. As she turned it, the sliver slipped out of its crack and she pushed it back in.

  Papa Bois squeezed her hand gently. “We have survived his storms before. We will survive again,” he said.

  “You have. What about the rest of us?” Corinne squinted at the jumbies as they looked at each other. “There is something you can do, isn’t there?” Corinne asked. “Please. We have to try everything.”